Well they've done a good enough job of ruining it for my generation already. Now they're going after those of us lucky enough to have an inheritance.

"Could you just, y'know, not pay for treatment and accept that it's your time, maybe, please, mum? I sort of want the whole house when you're gone y'know."

Care costs will eat up equity in no time at all for a pensioner who doesn't have extravagant savings or investments that keep their income topped up sufficiently.

So a vote for the Tories is not only a vote for a hard Brexit that ruins our economy, no guarantees of reduced migration because we rely on them too much but is also to kill our elderly. Looking forward to the 2022 landslide when they pledge means tested euthanasia.

Looking forward to the 2022 landslide when they pledge means tested euthanasia.

Have you seen the current interviews for disability benefits? They sure ask a lot of questions about suicide. Questions like "Have you considered suicide? If so, why haven't you gone through with it?"

There's concern about mental health... then there's blatantly hiring mercenaries to try and goad the most vulnerable people in society into killing themselves. "We're taking your only income away and putting you into poverty. You can appeal or just go die"

Think those rumors might have got their wires crossed Mantis. The policy is to allow people to pay for their care after they die rather than sell their home in order to pay for it whilst they are still alive. Then after their death the family will have to settle the care bill. The £100,000 is an increase in the threshold at which they would have to pay for their care. Right now it sits at £23,500 in assets.

It's basically another spin on a Labour policy which is times past has been called the 'death tax' by Tories and the right wing media. Will be interesting to see how it goes down with the Mail and their ilk.

Elsewhere whilst wearing a turban and visiting a Sikh gurdwara, Boris thought it the right venue to talk about how Brexit will allow us to sell more whiskey to India and Pakistan. Back in the cupboard he goes.

DjchunKfunK wrote:Think those rumors might have got their wires crossed Mantis. The policy is to allow people to pay for their care after they die rather than sell their home in order to pay for it whilst they are still alive. Then after their death the family will have to settle the care bill. The £100,000 is an increase in the threshold at which they would have to pay for their care. Right now it sits at £23,500 in assets.

This is correct, but from what I've read it seems you're missing a key change in the policy. The £23,500 being raised to £100,000 of assets used to exclude your primary residence if you remained in it whilst receiving care. It only counted towards your assets if you went into a home. That is not going to be the case now, the £100,000 will include the value of your house even if you choose to stay in it and receive care. So that effectively makes it a sweeping policy that hits every home owner.

Yes you won't have to sell up immediately to pay for costs. But now you will have to pay regardless of whether you stay at home or not. And no doubt these equity extractions will be done in the form of interest bearing loans so that by the time you do die the bill will be inflated and a vast majority of your estate will be eaten up.

That's all well and good for very rich old people who can afford the costs. But for many old people they likely won't have many assets beyond the home they own, and if it's anywhere around the average house value then it won't last long when the bills start to add up.

It's a typical Tory policy. Inheritance tax reductions benefit the wealthiest most whilst this policy slams the middle earners hard. It's vindictive, particularly considering that the social care crisis is one caused entirely by their austerity measures.

It's a tough one really when it comes to elderly care. Should the state be responsible for looking after you if you have the money to do so, but it is tied up in property? Should it be a guarantee that everyone can just pass on all their wealth to their children and everyone else should pay for their care so they can do this?

I do think their should be a limit and it should include any assets you own. It's difficult though to work out what that limit should be.

I don't disagree. Inheritance tax works better because the more wealth you have the more you pay. This measure is going to hit regular people far harder than the much wealthier. People pay taxes and NIC all throughout their lives, there should be a reasonable level of care provided in old age, not this punishment where if you worked hard enough to buy a property but aren't especially rich that you will be forced to give equity away. I don't think it's fair for someone to work all their life, buy an average house and then be told that because of that they aren't eligible for any care at all. We're not talking vast sums of wealth here for most people.

It would work better if the asset cap were £300,000 or perhaps higher so that only those with more valuable estates fell into it, but even then it isn't that much higher than the current national average property value. As it stands all this policy is doing is asset stripping the lower middle classes.

Hell, scrap it all together, raise IHT to 60% and tighten up the rules on trusts and gifts and raise the threshold for it to £700,000. Even that would be a better idea than this current proposal, but it'd never fly because it would hit the top 5% of the population harder and those are the only people the Tories ever actually think about.

Forgive my ignorance on the subject, but assuming you had a house and no other substantial assets and you expected to go into care soon, would it not make more sense to immediately give your house to your kids or whoever so that you have no assets and then have the state pay for your care? Not saying that's a great solution for the economy but from an individual's perspective would it not be better than letting your house pay for your care?

That's a potential workaround but we haven't seen any detail of this policy yet. A provision could easily be written in to prevent that kind of thing, similar to how the 7 year rule works for inheritance tax.

Wrathbone wrote:Forgive my ignorance on the subject, but assuming you had a house and no other substantial assets and you expected to go into care soon, would it not make more sense to immediately give your house to your kids or whoever so that you have no assets and then have the state pay for your care? Not saying that's a great solution for the economy but from an individual's perspective would it not be better than letting your house pay for your care?

Yeah as Mantis said the government would likely legislate against that.